Oct. 27/14

Hi, I have a small amount of time to write to you to let you know I´m entering the mission field tomorrow! I had my first interview with president on Sunday, he is a great man! Please pray for me tomorrow! I don´t know where I´m serving within the mission or who my companion is, but I am SO excited! Have a great week, I´ll email you next Monday, that´s my next Pday.

Hermana West

Oct. 23/14
This week was good, it´s been the best so far. Last Pday we went to the mall the Gavia. It was so cool! Also there´s an Ikea IN the mall, so obviously that´s where we ate lunch! SO GOOD! I also found a notebook I HAD to buy... Superman and lights up... that´s all. Last night I had a cool experience with a sister. The one that speaks French and is learning Spanish but only her companion and the secretary speak French. It´s a struggle for her. I felt impressed to share Mosiah 4:27 with her. She loved it and she gave me a wonderful necklace from Tahiti! I love her, she´s staying 2 extra weeks and I think she´ll pick up the language by then!

Funny story from this week is the conversation I had with one of my teachers... about the Lizzie
MacGuire movie. Made me happy that Hilary Duff is enjoyed by more than just me hahaha. We've been learning about subjunctive verb conjugations this week... Talk about hard but cool. Basically
everything I say needs to be conjugated that way. I feel like everything I've said has been nonsense to every one but it's great.

I'm heading out to the field on MONDAY! I'm so excited to meet my trainer and everything. Those of us staying in Madrid go to the mission home here in Madrid. Those in the Madrid mission going to
North or Canary Islands leave asap on Tuesday from the CCM. We have interviews with President on Sunday and then he gives us our devotional Sunday night!

Our fake investigators both  have baptismal dates and are progressing. Tomorrow will be our lsat day to teach them both. The park last week was with my favorite sister here Hermana McWhorter from Arkansas. She is AMAZING! I just cannot describe how much I love her. She has helped me so much. We had a great time proselyting together and are sad because she is going to the Barcelona
mission next week. But I am so glad I know her. I have made SO many good friends here. I am so stoked to enter the field! My Spanish is not great but I know I'll be blessed.

Love you,
Hermana West

This week has been a Little crazy, all the native Russian speakers are now in the field and all the native Spanish speakers are here in the CCM now! It’s fun because I can practice my Spanish but hard because I realize how not great my Spanish is… It’s crazy to think I’ll be going out in the field on October 28^th because my Spanish is nowhere near where I’d like it to be. But I am so excited! I really love the temple here and that we’ve been able to go every week on Pday. Last pday we went to the Prado museum. We saw some great and really famous art… that I know nothing about. My companion is an art administration major though… I learned a lot. Today we’re going shopping. That’ll be cool to experience Madrid!

This week has been particularly hard on everyone here. We’re all kind of in a stale mate of I love the MTC but I want to be helping real people. It’s been good to see us all come together to help one another though. My fake investigators are good. Isabel is learning a lot and bringing her family to a lesson with us! And Jose is having Family home evening with his family next week. I can’t wait to get into the field so I can experience Madrid and learn! But I do love all the missionaries here.

One crazy thing that happened this week is one of the girls that came in and thought she was a native Spanish speaker… does not speak Spanish nor English… she speaks FRENCH! 4 of us missionaries can sort of speak French and one of the secretaries can as well. It’s been a struggle for us missionaries, her companion especially and the teachers to try to teach her. She’s got a great heart though, hopeful she can pick up the language alright.

Love you

Hermana West

So a pic of one of the Russian sisters I love! Us pointing to where we’re from because this was such a chance encounter!

Also my teacher Hermana Ganaza… aka my mom’s Spanish twin! She reminds me so much of my mom!

So we watched the morning sessions of General Conference live (which is from 6pm to 8pm here in Madrid) and then the morning after watched the afternoon sessions. I loved it! Our leaders are seriously inspired! I especially loved the general woman´s meeting that I finally got to watch on Sunday!

The food is good. Lots of soups and cereal. Not a ton of variety but I haven´t starved yet! My room has 3 sets of bunk beds and closets for all of us. All 6 girls in my district live in my room! It´s kinda crazy but a lot of fun! 

I have loved this week! It has definitely been hard but inspiring all the same. General Conference was good because of the inspiration and excitement but bad because I wasn´t doing missionary work. I just want to be out in the field telling people about general conference and then watching with them so that they can begin to feel God´s love for them! But I definitely loved the opportunity I had to watch all 4 sessions as well as the woman´s broadcast.

My favorite thing this week is my new investigator Isabel. She is just a teacher acting but I feel connected to her because of the trials in her life. She is separated from her husband and has 4 kids. One of which passed away 3 months ago. I love her so much and the spirit when we teach her is so strong so I know that even though I can´t say everything I want to in flawless Spanish she stills understands what she needs to hear.

I love my Saviour Jesus Christ. He is one amazing brother!

Love,

Hermana West

We got to go to the Madrid zoo for PDay! Lots of monkeys!

 Me and my companion!

Alright,

So best story from this week, every Saturday we go to a park here in Madrid and contact everyone in the park, it´s hard because my Spanish is not very good but it´s fun because they put you with a different companion and I feel like I´m doing´actual missionary work. In the MTC there is also a learning Russian program. So some girls who have been learning Russian just left on Tuesday. I love them so much, they are amazing women! One of them was my partner for the park last Saturday. It was her last time and she said that everyone except her has met someone who speaks Russian in the park except for her. I prayed so hard when I found out she was going to be my companion that we would find someone that spoke russian. I didn´t care if I didn´t have any other success but I wanted that for her. Well, we had lots of success! We met 1 English speaker that was so prepared, got his info and gave him a libro de mormon. Then we found A RUSSIAN COUPLE! They were posing in front of a ststue and we offered to help take a pic so both couold be in it. When they said ¨ruso¨aka Russian in Spanish her face lit up! I have never seen anyone so excited! Sister Killpack is her name, she´s serving in Russia right now doing amazing things! She talked to them so well and gave them a russian BOM! Talk about miracles!

 

Anyways, we´re getting new fake investigators this week. My Spanish is coming but I know it can be a lot better. When teaching lessons I throw French in all the time! It´s funny, like my brain thinks its not English so it must be Spanish! Haha, I love it and the CCM is amazing! I love all the people here. We just had transfers so there´s a ton of native Russian speakers here for the next 2 weeks! So that means a group of 50 missionaries, not actually that many.

I love this work and I am so glad I have this time to prepare to meet the people I am meant to teach here in Madrid!

 

Te amo,

Hermana West

Sis. Killpack and me!

 Somewhere in Madrid!